Wells, Vermont is about to become as
famous as Roswell, New Mexico. Apparently, aliens have visited Area 30 and abducted more
than a half dozen people. The abduction, carefully orchestrated, bypassed the average
townspeople. Instead, the abductors chose their victims from a select group - those
entrusted to care for, guide, counsel and educate the communitys children.

The aliens, competent and
uncompromising, sucked out the brainpower of the education populace. Decimating the
towns ability to academically lead the next generation into knowledgeable adulthood,
the aliens left behind an institution shy on personnel and a village wondering
"why?"

Other
World

The reality of the world today
combines traditional education with technology. There are those, however, who stubbornly
cling to romanticized images of the one-room schoolhouse - images from a bygone era best
suited for placement as curiosities in cute tourist books. .

Wells, a town just shy of 1,000
people in southwestern Vermont, is a wonderful, geographically and strategically
well-situated small town. Vermont and its half-a-million people, invite three-to-four
times that number to visit each year in order to financially help support the State
through tourism.

Vermont is considered by many
throughout the nation to be an "other world." The description of Vermont as a
"socialist" state is recognition and respect for an ideology accepted by a broad
spectrum of working people.

Vermont is also home for the only
independent member of the House of Representatives, Congressman Bernie Sanders, also a
socialist (soon to be running for his fourth term in office).

The Green Mountain State, often
referred to by Conservatives as the Socialist Republic of Vermont, has much to offer the
resident and the visitor alike. Perhaps, this is why the alien visitors chose the other
worldiness of the Green Mountains for a visit.

Sticking
Out

I ask you, if you were an
intergalactic space traveler looking for an intriguing human community to explore,
wouldnt you choose Wells, Vermont? Imagine finding, in a sea of progressive thinking
and dedication to doing whats best for children, a culture so anomalous, that from
thousands of miles out into space, it sticks out begging to be explored.

Many Vermont small and medium size
towns, with populations ranging from 800 - 5,000, who maintain a religious adherence to
conservative views, are doing unjustifiable harm to their children through slashing school
budgets, programs, salaries and transportation.

The town of Wells, in which our
family lives, is a good indicator of the potential damage that provincial, rural,
isolationism can inflict upon the young - all in the name of stopping the "tax and
spend liberals." The term liberal, a label which long ago lost its significance, but
which remains well-ingrained in the post World War II mindset, is daily reinforced by A.M.
radio talk-show jocks. These agents of division, whose intelligence parallels the low
frequency of their broadcasts, purport to tell the people the truth. It is astounding how
many people listen and take what they hear from these purveyors of mean-spiritedness as
gospel.

Deeper
Than That

Wells is but one town, in a large
country of thousands of small rural and suburban communities who would prefer that the
world remain outside their town limits. The shortcoming of its vision however, is much
deeper than that.

Imagine, less than a year-and-a-half
away from the year 2000, an influential member of a Board of Education publicly stating
their philosophical opposition to technology in the classroom! Even more appallingly, the
Board (as a group) declared a moratorium on technology. While the nation and the world
grapples with the computer millenium bug (Y2K), the Wells Village School has already
solved that problem by not having enough computers to worry about it.

Aside from misguided philosophy,
there are deeper questions regarding professionalism and/or treatment of the professional
staff. Imagine a Board of Education calling its teachers to stand before it and asking
them to justify consumable classroom expenses such as pencils, rulers and paper;
defending, item by item, an approved expense account!!!

In its attempt at saving a penny,
and preventing the staff from buying one more pencil or ruler than absolutely necessary,
much respect has been lost. The Board, showing little respect for the teachers, lost
respect for themselves. In turn, according to the biological axiom, "like tends to
beget like", respect for the towns school and for the town itself is lost.
Worse - while the slash-and-cut protagonists were busy counting pencils, the teachers
simply disappeared.

Residents are concerned. Knowing
that a towns desirability can be judged in part, by the reputation of the school,
property owners are fearing the teacher abduction episode will lower real estate values.
(It already has).

Everywhere

On November 20, 1997, a press
release from Rhode Island Senator Jack Reeds office, described a bill whose intent
is to overhaul the way in which teachers are prepared and to "address an anticipated
national teacher shortage".

Senator Reed, perhaps privy to the
alien teacher abduction phenomenon in Wells (and other locales), has introduced a bill,
called the Teacher Excellence in America Challenge (TEACH) Act of 1997, which would
overhaul the way teachers are trained and paid. It appears that good qualified
instructors are difficult to find, especially when one considers the low wages and high
disrespect many towns have for teachers.

Based upon the proceedings of the
National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, Senator Reeds bill attempts to
meet the impending teacher shortage of the future head on. Reeds office is alarmed
by the loss of teachers.

Over the next decade, the number of
students entering America's education system will increase every year. By 2006, a record
54 million kids will be in America's classrooms. We're going to need two million more
teachers to satisfy the additional students and replace retiring teachers. If we are to
meet these challenges, we've got to prepare now and that means training qualified teachers
who will stick with it for those additional students.

Senator Reed found that no more than
12% of all newly hired teachers even have a minor in their main teaching area. (That
figure rises above 30% for mathematics teachers.) While these figures are poor, in the
areas of study most relevant for the future, the technology-based skills and training,
they are much worse.

The LEIT 597 Internet website, an
Independent Research Project on education, concludes that,

In the past five
years, the availability of new instructional technologies for educators has accelerated.
Understanding those technologies and their appropriate use in the classroom is becoming
essential in today's schools. Unfortunately, the complexities and the implications of
these technologies are a formidable barrier to actual classroom utilization.

Technological complexity becomes
insurmountable when Boards of Education do not even recognize their significance.
Ignorance, being bliss, negates the complexity through an aversion of reality.

Though a philosophical opposition to
technology may be a personal choice, foisting it upon children, who as adults, will live a
technological reality, is criminal. Perhaps, this response to technology is an example of
classic psychological projection.

A vibrant, well-supplied and
integrated one-room schoolhouse can be great, providing mixed ages and individual focus,
like a good home school. However, the notion that the one room schoolhouse of our parents
and grandparents is good enough for our kids is a coverup for our shortcomings in
understanding technology and denies our children the tools society requires to succeed.

I have hearing people say, "I
didnt have a computer and I turned out fine and so will my kids." These are the
same people that are saying that one computer per classroom of twenty or more students is
adequate. It is not.

Though having access to computers in
the classroom does not guarantee success, not having one does place limitation on
possibilities. Perhaps, it may be too late for some adults to learn new tricks and benefit
from technology. To deny young people the tools now necessary as a result of our
own shortcomings and fears is submitting to the egomania self-importance.

National
Evidence

There is an increasing national body
of evidence which suggests that Wells might not be alone in its alien abduction
phenomenon. It appears that whenever schools are "visited", a recognizable trail
is left behind. This trail, intended to influence the young in the ways of the aliens, is
surreptitiously placed where it will influence the young minds in the most efficient and
devious manner. A close examination reveals the presence of much alien propaganda.

John E. Macks book, Abduction:
Human Encounters with Aliens, may have been discredited by anti-alien fanatics,
however, Schwartz lends new evidence that they may have been wrong. Schwartz reports that
in Grapevine, Texas, a middle school has placed a Dr. Pepper billboard on the roof to
advertise to passing aircraft. Coke and Pepsi sports scoreboards, given to schools
free of charge in educash-strapped America, are sprouting up everywhere. In mid-July, a
large banner was hung outside the Pawlet, VT firehouse, ostensibly advertising a community
firemens auction. The banner invitation however, had a large green Mountain Dew logo
on one side and a Pepsi logo on the other.

In a state which prides itself for
not having any highway billboards (it has been illegal since 1968), these signs
conspicuously alert the passerby to the presence of alien lifeforms and influence. Yet,
schools like the Wells school are more and more looking into corporate sponsorship of
activities, programs and education.

How easy it is to cut programs and
then have the kiddies go home and beg grandma, mom, dad and the neighbors to buy junk from
fund-raising kits whose products are made in the inhumane slave labor prisons and
sweatshops of China (and other countries). The same people who would criticize the
president for dealing with China are somehow not "philosophically opposed" in
having their communitys children hawk that countries cheap wares in order to support
the school. Amazing. While the progressives are accused of being socialists, it is the
conservatives who trade in communist produced goods. Go figure.

And what better proof of alien
presence can one ask for than the electronic cerebral invasion of Channel One. Schwartz
writes.

Since 1990, this 12-minute daily
news show has been beamed to schools across the country; it is now featured in more than
12,000 schools with more than 8 million kids. Each promises to show Channel One, and in
exchange each is wired and lent a television for every classroom.

Concern

In mid-July,JeanneE
and I attended a citizens working group meeting (CWGM) to discuss responses to the quickly
deteriorating conditions at the Wells village elementary school. The wonderful school
building accommodates over 100 students, and till recently, a full complement of teachers.
Though underpaid (Wells school ranks 157th out 164 in State elementary school
compensation) for the most part they were committed and dedicated professionals. They are
no more. Every teacher except two quit, resigned, moving on for "personal
reasons." So did the principal.

The CWGM brought up many concerns
regarding the X-File-style departure of the instructional and administrative staff. One of
the 15-year veteran teachers at the school, upon her disappearance, left her classroom
devoid of signs of life. Not only personal effects, but supplies, such as pens, pencils,
paper, books, music, art, art supplies, games, etc., were beamed up and vanished.

The disappearance of teaching
paraphernalia (for greener pastures) came about when the teacher disappeared along with
her personal effects. The classroom was left almost completely bare. It appears
that this teacher was buying, out of her own pocket, classroom materials which the school
could not afford to buy or which it refused to spend the money on. Better to buy it
yourself than to have to ask the bureaucracy to get it for you, especially when you know
what the answer is bound to be. Its much less hassle getting it yourself than having
to justify buying it to the Board.

Americans have been trained to
expect such occurrences in countries where the vast majority of the population is poor or
destitute. But here, in the United States, the richest country on Earth, where the economy
is booming and Wall Street is king? Impossible, you would think. Yet, in the Wells school,
there was hesitation to make an emergency request for funds to buy toilet paper. The late
Frank Zappa, prophetically wrote and sang in the 1970s, "And, they said that it
couldnt happen here " It has.

Dangerous
Bathrooms

The Campbell Soup Company
administers a program called, "Labels for Education." By simply registering the
school with Campbells, the school community can " begin immediately collecting
labels to get FREE stuff for your school." Perhaps, we could collect Campbell Soup
labels and for every 1,000 labels we could redeem them for a case of Scott toilet paper.
We can then, as the Campbell Soup Company says,

Use our packaging to devise a can
phone to talk to your friends, to create and play our Goldfishing game, or to design a
really special gift.

The added benefit of exchanging a
kilocoupons worth of Campbell Soup Labels for Scott tissue towels would be the prevention
of Bolsheviks in our bathroom!

In the 1930s, the Scott Tissue Towel
company advertised its washroom products through a poster with the heading, "Is Your
Washroom Breeding Bolsheviks?" (Bolsheviks being in big red letters). The premise of
the ad was that if the toilet paper used on ones behind were not soft enough,
workers would become so dissatisfied that they would transform themselves into Reds.
Scratchy behinds might not breed Bolsheviks but, soft ones may encourage aliens.

Misplaced
Anger

One of the school board members made
the public comment recently that they would not send their child to the Wells village
school as they considered it to be inadequate. The inadequacy is quickly becoming the
status quo.

Troubling is the fact that during
the annual local town meeting, discussion takes place around taxation issues, how to lower
them, etc., but, rarely does the citizenry question the irresponsible expenditure of
federal tax money for the military industrial complex. President Clintons budget
calls for $1,600,000,000,000 (1.6 trillion) for the military between now and the year
2002.

If enough people cared they could,
perhaps, finally, start addressing the real nature of the problem. Towns such as Wells,
VT, require a shifting of federal priorities from trillion dollar military misspending to
paying good teachers decent salaries and buying the schools all the toilet paper they
need.

In 1997, Congress gave the Pentagon
twenty B2 bombers that the military admitted it did not need. If we did away with the
planes we could immediately funnel a billion dollars to thirty of the most needy states to
help solve the most pressing educational needs. We could also suggest that if Congress
insists on buying the planes, they could hold bake sales to help fund their purchases.

While some are quick to criticize an
English as a second language (ESL) program or special education, nary a peep is heard
about Ken Starrs 40-million dollar fruitless multi-year investigation of Bill
Clintons supposed sexual misconduct. Why not?

Perhaps, it is the because the most
vulnerable are easy targets. Cutting back on services for children takes little effort and
the children in elementary school are not about to fight back - though they can be coerced
into selling tchotske door-to-door. Poor people have few resources with which to organize
and few have the wherewithal to do so or can take the time away from trying to make a
living. Thus, anger and frustration can be easily directed and expressed locally. It is
much easier to react than to think, organize and act.

In time, there will be little
choice. As the distribution of wealth continues from the poor and the middle class up to
the top through the privatization of everything, eventually the public schools may cease
to exist. Parents will then have to provide transportation on their own as their children
head to private schools that they may have to fund out of their own pockets. What a
bargain will that be. Does anyone seriously believe, for example, that as in the case with
Wells, Vermont, a student can be educated for the present going public high school per
pupil cost of $4,400? To believe so, just might be the result of multiple alien abduction
and reality disallignment.